


Skirting the Issue

by makemadej (santamonicayachtclub)



Series: Skirting the Issue [1]
Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Awkward Boners, Corsetry, Crossdressing, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Miscommunication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-05
Updated: 2018-09-15
Packaged: 2019-07-07 03:08:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15899664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/santamonicayachtclub/pseuds/makemadej
Summary: Lizzie Borden took a dress and landed Shane in quite a mess.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm taking a few liberties with the Lizzie Borden episode and blaming all of them on Ryan for [saying Shane should try to put on a dress](https://youtu.be/LuNDAGxYHSs?t=11m10s). ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

“Good news,” Ryan chirps, bursting into the front parlor with enough clamor to make the entire Borden family grumble in their graves. “The Fall River Historical Society is doing us a solid.”

Shane lifts his headphones off one ear. “They what now?”

Ryan beams at him and Shane double takes at what initially looks like a fucking body bag.

He’s been pretty absorbed in reviewing the day’s footage and munching on a five-dollar footlong, so it takes him a moment to realize it’s actually a garment bag. The Borden parlor isn’t the easiest place to concentrate, and Shane was pretty pleased when he managed to get himself in the zone. The fussy Victorian furniture makes him feel like he’s constantly on the verge of breaking something, the velvet drapes suck at letting in natural light, and everything is a different floral print that commingles in a chaotic and claustrophobic way while somehow still appearing understated. Lizzie herself levels the room with a placid stare from a framed picture over on the piano. If Shane were at all easily rattled, he’d have been tempted to turn her towards the wall.  

“They’re letting us borrow this.” With great ceremony, Ryan lays the garment bag across a flowered sofa perpendicular to the _other_ flowered sofa where Shane is currently situated.

“I thought you and Teej were picking up camera batteries.”

“We were, but then I had a brilliant idea and we made a detour. I texted you.”

Shane does, in fact, recall Ryan texting him _i have a brilliant idea._

“You,” Ryan says deliberately, “did not reply to my text, which is too fucking bad because this is the kind of brilliance that’s gonna impact you very directly.”

Shane rolls his eyes and lets him milk the moment. “Yeah, okay. So what’s in the bag?”

“I told you.” Ryan’s eyebrows dance upward. “Brilliance.”

“What’s in the _baaaaag_?” Shane warbles, doing his best impression of Brad Pitt in Se7en.

Practically radiating triumph, Ryan unzips it and shows him.

“Is this, like...actual period clothing?” Shane asks, feeling woefully out of his depth. All he can make sense of is even more fabric in even more floral patterns. Any second now, the room is going to spring to life and strangle him with demurely manicured ivy.

“Nah, that kind of stuff isn’t up for grabs. These are replicas. There’s a lot of overlap between the historical society and a community theater group that specializes in Borden reenactment.”

“Of course there is.” Shane sighs. “I hate that none of this surprises me. So what are we doing with this stuff?”

Ryan’s grin is blinding. “Remember how Lizzie changed her dress? She burned one because it supposedly had paint on it, which obviously means it was blood because she totally did it. But Maggie, the maid, said it wasn’t the dress she saw her in the day of the murders.”

“Bridget.”

“Huh?”

“The Bordens called her Maggie, but her name was Bridget. Maggie was the name of their last maid, so they just stuck the new one with it too. It’d be like everyone calling me Brent.” Shane pauses, contemplating. “Which would definitely make me crack, now that I think about it. Maybe _she_ did it.”

“Dude, it’s really sweet of you to preserve her identity, but that’s so not the point. We’re gonna find out once and for all if Lizzie could’ve changed out of one dress and into another one while your girl _Bridget_ was taking a nap. She would’ve had to pull this off in that little margin of time between the murders and Bridget waking up. Ruby said it would be a lot easier with a maid, but still doable. So now we just need to find out for sure _how_ doable.”

This is a lot to process and Shane is still rationalizing the possibility of a misnamed maid meltdown. “Who’s Ruby?”

“Basically, she’s our hookup.” Ryan nods towards the garment bag, which is still gaping around its frilly contents. “She’s a member of the historical society. Mark and TJ are getting her miked right now. We should be able to start shooting once everyone’s done eating.”

Shane steals a glance at his Subway wrappers. “Okay, so I guess I should get rid of my onion breath if you’re having _company_ over. She’s gonna be in the show?”

“Well, yeah. To both, I mean. Yes, you’ve gotta fix the dragon breath before someone passes out and sues us, and yes, we need someone who knows how to change into and out of a thirteenth century dress or whatever.”

Shane lets that slide. “So we’re going to be seeing how fast she can do it?”

Ryan twinkles at him. Actually twinkles, eyes sparkling like he’s somehow slapped a particularly cloying Snapchat filter onto himself in real life. It’s unnerving. “Nope.”

“I’m confused.”

“I’m okay with that.” Ryan flashes finger guns at him, deftly zips up the garment bag, and sweeps out of the room before Shane has a chance to respond.

 

* * *

 

“Okay, _seriously_?” It takes all Shane’s self-control not to sound completely exasperated.

Ryan just spreads his arms, palms up. “You were the one who said Lizzie could totally change dresses in that amount of time! So in a way, this is your idea we’re testing.”

He has a point. A point that was caught on camera, even. Leave it to Ryan to push his luck halfway to the moon.

“That doesn’t mean I was signing up to be a mannequin,” Shane counters, eyeballing the ensemble currently spread across the guest bed.

“You know what another word for mannequin is?” Ryan looks unfairly pleased with himself. “A dummy.”

TJ, the fucking traitor, has the nerve to high five him.

“Sweetie, if you’re not comfortable with it, I’m happy to just talk through the process or demonstrate on someone else,” Ruby assures him. “Your friend here said he had a tall drink of water who’d be perfect for this, but he left out some fairly important details.”

Ruby is a housewife with a keen interest in historic preservation. She also volunteers as a stitcher for community theater and is tickled pink--her words, not Shane’s--to be part of their show. And nothing, apparently, gets past her. Ryan actually looks a little chastened when she calls him out.

Shane rounds on him. “Wait. You called me a tall drink of water?”

“Am I wrong?” demands Ryan. “There are so many other things I could’ve called you, you should be freaking flattered.”

It’s almost endearing the way he flits a glance at Ruby and deftly edits out the f-bomb. _Almost_. Shane refuses to let Ryan endear himself right now.

But at the end of the day, it’s about what works for Unsolved. Besides, Shane can be a good sport and Ryan’s producer instincts rarely steer them wrong. This really is going to make for a great segment.

Shane spreads his arms. “All right, you know what? Let’s do it. Strap me in.”

“You’re all going to be just so jealous when you see how nice he looks,” Ruby promises.

 

* * *

  

This is all going down in the guest bedroom on the second floor, where there’s enough space to set up cameras and a conveniently placed mirror. It’s also where the body of Abby Borden was found, and there’s a pair of gruesome nineteenth century crime scene photos standing vigil on the bureau just to remind everyone of it.

Ryan is narrating in a tone somewhere between his theory voice and blandly conversational. “So we’re here to see just how easy it was to get dressed back in Lizzie’s day and if she really would have been able to change clothes before the maid came downstairs. This is Ruby, our resident expert on historical clothing. And that’s Shane, who’s volunteered to help her out.”

“Volunteered,” Shane stage whispers, making finger quotes towards Mark’s camera.

“So, Ruby,” Ryan continues, not missing a beat. “What can you tell us about how long it took to put on one of these bad boys?”

Ruby smiles cheerily, looking for all the world like she should be holding a plate of gluten-free cookies. “Well, it’s a common misconception that Victorian dresses took upwards of an hour to put on. In fact, it typically didn’t take anywhere near that long, especially if we’re only talking about the dress itself and not all the layers that went underneath. For the sake of accuracy, though, we’ll start from the ground up. If I could have my lovely assistant step forward here...”

Shane obliges, acutely aware that he can see directly into the mirror when he looks across the bed.

“Normally you’d be in your chemise and drawers, but we’ll just say this counts.” Ruby waves a plump brown hand at Shane’s henley and jeans.

“Now this,” she continues, lifting a many-spined contraption dangling laces like tentacles, “is a slot and stud corset. These made it a lot easier for women to lace themselves up. The split busk allowed you hook the corset in the front, which held it in place while you would tighten the laces in the back. This could be done much more easily with assistance, but wasn’t impossible to do alone.”

She proceeds to do so, fastening the corset around Shane’s ribs. His reflection blinks back at him, stunned.

Ryan is suddenly very close, all messy hair and inquisitiveness. “So then you do that thing in Gone With the Wind where Scarlett’s getting wrenched around?” He silences Shane with a glance. “Daysha showed me that clip when she was doing the Kim K waist challenge.”

“Most people didn’t tightlace, but you would adjust the laces in the back to the desired degree of tightness. Like I said, having someone else do it speeds things along, but doing it alone is entirely feasible.”

She steers Shane to the side and he watches in the mirror as her fingers start to pluck and pull at the laces crisscrossing up his back. She’s right, it doesn’t feel like he’s being pinched in half. It’s more like he’s somehow squirmed his way into one of those Thundershirts they make for anxious dogs.

“So if Lizzie really did put on another dress post-axing, that doesn’t necessarily mean she had to change all the under stuff,” Ryan muses.

“Even if she had, it’s possible to change in under ten minutes,” Ruby says, which makes Shane feel somewhat validated.

“See?” He huffs out a laugh, a little surprised his lungs allow it. “Told you she had plenty of time.”

Ryan narrows his eyes. “Lace him tighter.”

Shane totally expect her to laugh him off, maybe scold him for treating this like a game, but then she does something that makes his heart stop mid-beat. “Would you like to take a turn?” Ruby offers. “It’s very simple.”

“Uh, excuse me,” Shane protests. “When did this turn into Ryan Does Corsets?”

“Oh, he just wants to learn,” Ruby says, patting his arm like _he’s_ the one being unreasonable. “Let’s let him give it a try.”

 

* * *

 

Ryan, apparently, is a natural.

It can’t be more than two minutes that he spends diligently tightening the laces up Shane’s back under Ruby’s guidance, but it feels like hours. Each tug of the cords forces a little more breath out of Shane’s body, makes his head a few degrees lighter. The thing is, he doesn’t think the corset is the reason for either of these.

Shane can’t pinpoint exactly when he starts getting hard, but he can pinpoint the moment it becomes a problem.

Situational boners are an inevitable side effect of having a dick, but for fuck’s _sake_. This isn’t just a minor inconvenience. This is shaping up to be a serious issue.

Shane’s first response, as usual, is to try and rationalize. It’s not like he’s been stewing in his own hormones for too long; he jerked himself off in the shower earlier and he’ll most likely do it again, which is a standard preventative measure whenever he and Ryan end up sharing a bed. It can’t be an exhibitionist thing, he’s in front of the camera all the damn time. And it can’t be about the corset because he can’t wait to shed the dumb thing and move on with the investigation.

He can’t stop staring at them in the mirrors as he runs down the list of possibilities, eyes darting between his own unfamiliar silhouette and the look on Ryan’s face as he helps it along. There’s something about just how intense Ryan’s focus is as he dresses him up like a doll, his face tight with concentration.

He remembers the two of them filming in the Sullivan room, side by side, arguing over the logistics of Lizzie changing her outfit. Ryan stumbling over his words, accidentally saying he’d like to see Shane in a dress, and they’d both gotten a good laugh out of it. Shane had thought it was just another flippant moment caught on camera, but clearly Ryan decided he was really onto something there.

It was funny at the time. It should _still_ be funny. There’s no logical reason Shane should be getting turned on while Ryan very capably runs his hands down his back and steps aside to let Ruby tie off the laces.

“Is this okay, big guy?” Ryan asks.

It takes an embarrassing amount of effort for Shane to sound composed. “Yeah, it’s...not bad, actually.” He tries an experimental stretch to one side. The corset is hugging his middle like a living thing, but it isn’t exactly unpleasant. “It’s weird, but I don’t feel like I’m gonna pass out or anything.”

Ryan meets his eyes in the mirror and grins. “Don’t worry, I’ll catch you if you swoon.”

Shane doesn’t bother informing him how likely this is looking.

It’s almost a relief when Ruby guides a petticoat over his head and shows Ryan how to tie if off. At least his dignity is slightly more preserved. Next there’s a corset cover and a foundation skirt, which is even better, and then an overskirt on top of that. Even with the most raging hard-on in the world, no way is anyone noticing through all this fabric. Maybe he should keep this on all day.

Vaguely, he’s aware that Ruby is explaining how the tiny buttons on a Victorian bodice can be done up with fingers or a buttonhook. “We’ll be skipping this step since I doubt your shoulders will fit, but even so, doing up a bodice wouldn’t generally take more than a few minutes.” She gives his arm a fond pat. “And I have to say, you’re a vision without it.”

He catches Ryan staring at him in the mirror with unguarded appreciation and that’s when Shane’s knees threaten to buckle.

“I, um, I feel a little queasy,” he blurts out. “Give me a sec, okay?”

Without waiting for an answer, Shane hitches up his skirts and flees.


	2. Chapter 2

The next room over happens to be the bedroom of Lizzie herself. It could be oozing blood from the walls for all Shane cares; all that matters is it’s a room with no one else in it and has a door he can shove shut behind him.

Ryan sees himself in two seconds later, mercifully sans camera. Of all times for him to be unfazed by a closed door in a mysterious house.

“Shane, hey, I’m sorry I just sprung this on you. That wasn’t cool.”

“What?” Shane gapes at him. “I’m not mad at you.”

“Then what the hell’s wrong with you?” Ryan looks so earnestly baffled it would be cute under different circumstances. “Are you having some macho freakout about wearing a dress?”

“Am I _what?_ Does that sound like me at all?”

“I mean, you got all gussied up and now you’re being a diva, so pardon me if I assume…”

“It’s not aliens,” Shane says dryly.

“That’s exactly what an alien would say,” Ryan says, so poker-faced Shane thinks he might even be serious.

This is absurd. Shane is aching to shove the heel of his hand against his dick just to take the edge off, but there are a zillion physical and psychological layers he needs to navigate first. Not to mention Ryan is two feet away and clearly thinks he’s been replaced by a pod person.

Also, Ryan’s idea of making him feel better involves poking him in his corseted ribs and informing him he thinks Ruby has a crush on him.

“I think she really likes you, man.” Ryan gives him another jab and singsongs lightly, “She’s a Shaniac, Shaaaaaniac, on the floor.”

Normally Shane would snort and say something pithy, but he can’t find any humor in this. It’s not Ruby, it’s not TJ or Mark or Devon or the dress itself, but it’s maybe a little bit about Ryan.

Okay, it’s a lot about Ryan. But that’s nothing new; Shane has been doing Bergara damage control for the better part of two years now. What _is_ new is how it felt to be all pliant and passive while Ryan helped lace him up, so strong and focused and _close,_ so goddamn close Shane can feel his breath and smell his aftershave, but even _that_ shouldn’t be enough to faze him. They’re in close quarters all the damn time, albeit rarely in situations that involve Ryan putting his hands on him, but for some reason the intimacy of it is bowling him over like never before.

Aside from that time Ryan decided to try on that tissue-thin V-neck. And the time he drunkenly passed out on Shane’s shoulder. And all those times he’s been gratuitously shirtless, or gotten a little squirmy in his sleep when they’re sharing a bed, or unleashed obscene noises while working out.

The point is, Shane is not remotely equipped to be processing thoughts he typically works very hard to not process, and he’s especially not equipped to be processing them during a shoot  while sporting a hard-on under a dress on loan from the poor innocent Fall River Historical Society that really doesn’t deserve to be roped into his shit.

“No, for real, what’s wrong? You’re like...panting. Did we do you up too tight?” And before Shane realizes it, Ryan’s flicked open the buttons on the corset cover and reached beneath to try and unclip the busk.

Shane recoils.

Ryan steps back immediately, hands raised like he’s placating a wild animal. “Whoa, whoa, okay.”

“I…” Shane chokes out, willing Ryan to _get_ it but also desperately hoping he never gets it. Which is entirely possible; there’s a lot to process here. He’s freaking out and looks like Little Bo-Peep and Ryan is watching him with wide, concerned eyes like Shane’s a bomb he doesn’t know how to defuse.

Shane can tell the instant the truth clicks into place for him.

“Oh, _shit_. Do you need to...handle it?” Ryan asks, color riding high on his cheeks. “’Cause I can tell the guys you feel sick or something. I mean, you just had a fucking meatball footlong and then I squeezed you into a corset. We don’t have to do this.”

Shane feels an overwhelming surge of tenderness that swiftly curdles into shame. Ryan and his neuroses might drive him up the wall on an alarmingly regular basis, but he’s still a sweet guy who doesn’t want to make him uncomfortable. This just makes the real reason for Shane’s predicament even worse, like he’s somehow taking advantage of their friendship without Ryan’s consent.

Instead of answering seriously, he deflects. “My land, sir, I do believe you just insulted my figure,” putting on his most affected Southern drawl even though they’re in Massachusetts and he sounds like he’s about to cry. Whatever. This is the least of his worries.

An enterprising section of his brain is blithely doing its own thing, which is ruining Shane’s life one second at a time by imagining Ryan getting on his knees, ducking his head under his skirts, and blowing him with the whole crew just a room away, strong square hands gentling him through layers of lawn and linen. This is considerably closer to the top of his worry list.

The real Ryan does nothing of the sort. “Hey,” Ryan says instead, waggling his eyebrows. “Hey, Shane. Ghosts are real. Naked ghosts. Think about that, huh? Naked grandma ghosts in your shower, watching _you_ shower.”

“I’m gonna strangle you,” Shane promises, without rancor.

“Don’t take all your rage out on me just because you popped a fat juicy boner while wearing a pretty dress.”

For reasons that have nothing to do with the corset, Shane suddenly can’t breathe. “ _Ryan_.”

Sputtering, Ryan gestures wildly towards Shane’s voluminous skirts. “I’m trying to make it go away!”

Shane wants to melt through the floor and bury his face in Ryan’s shoulder at the same time.

“You didn’t know you could look this pretty, did you?” Ryan continues. “It’s not a bad look, man. There’s probably a bunch of old-ass ghosts giving you the eye right now.”

“ _Ryan_ ,” Shane pleads again.

“Have I been enough of a boner killer yet?”

Shane’s throat locks up.

Ryan flushes again, a dozen emotions flashing across his face in rapid succession. “Oh, no. Am I making it _worse?”_

Shane can’t answer.

Somehow, Ryan sounds calm. “I’ll...I’ll just tell ’em you ate too much and need to lie down. We can cut this whole scene. Take...take your time, it’s all good.”

He lifts his hands again, carefully, like he’s expecting Shane to snarl and snap at him. “I’m gonna help you get this off, okay? Fuck, pretend I didn’t just say get off. Just...c’mere, lemme…”

Mutely, Shane closes his eyes and lets Ryan undress him in the most clinical way possible. If he just concentrates hard enough, if he doesn’t look at Ryan for long enough, maybe the abject humiliation will slide off him like it’s just another article of clothing.

“I’m gonna give all this back to Ruby,” Ryan says tentatively once Shane’s back down to his jeans and henley. “You should go up to our room and take it easy. Text me when you...”

Shane still doesn’t open his eyes, but he can imagine Ryan doing something indistinct with one hand.

“Thanks,” Shane forces out.

“Yeah. Um. See you later.”

Ryan leaves, but the shame lingers for a long, long time.

 

* * *

 

Later in the Borden bed, Shane is still burning up with embarrassment.

Ryan had covered for him like a bro and now everyone thinks Shane just ate something that disagreed with him. He’d spent ages in the shower, gotten himself off spectacularly because his dick is incorrigible and has lost all sense of situational awareness, and contemplated trying to drown himself afterward.

Somehow, they’d gotten the rest of their footage without incident. All of it was shot in semi-darkness, so if Shane’s ears were stained crimson the whole time at least no one has to know it except him. And maybe Ryan.

“Shane?” Ryan asks before they turn the cameras back on. He’s damp-haired and bespectacled and Shane still can’t look him in the eye.

“Hm.”

“You okay, man?”

It’s the first time Ryan’s alluded to Shane having a moment straight out of middle school. Shane was sort of hoping he’d go on not mentioning it for the rest of their lives, but Ryan sounds genuinely worried about him and it would be pretty douchey not to answer.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m good.” Somehow that doesn’t seem like enough. There’s a dull ache in the center of Shane’s chest, some weird cocktail of affection and embarrassment. “I owe you...I don’t even know, Ryan, but I owe you big.”

The bed is barely wide enough to accommodate the two of them where they’re slumped against the headboard. Ryan’s shoulder is a solid point of warmth against Shane’s, but he deliberately doesn’t shift away from him. If he tries to put any space between them, Ryan will notice and put two and two together and Shane might as well jump out the window. His literal life depends on acting as natural as possible.

It’s been a long day. Shane’s not even sure he knows what qualifies as acting natural anymore.

“Careful, I’m gonna hold you to that,” Ryan promises, getting up to mess with one of the cameras.

Shane immediately turns onto his side and drags the covers up to his neck. “You do that.”

He makes himself fall asleep by sheer force of will so he doesn’t have to continue this conversation.

 

* * *

 

They’re having beer and burritos during an impromptu editing session at Ryan’s place when he notices all their scenes with Ruby are gone. No dress, no exposition on Victorian clothing, no opportunity for Shane to cringe while he scrutinizes himself on screen for any hint of boner. He can’t say he’s not relieved, but he’d definitely been under the impression this was untouched footage.

“What happened? Ruby’s segment is gone.”

Ryan’s shoulders contract. “Uh, would you believe she was a ghost and none of that shit showed up on camera?”

“You’ve _met_ me, right?”

“Yeah, I figured.” Ryan flashes him a dazzling grin, then gets all serious-faced. “I did some trimming, okay? I just didn’t want to make shit weird for you.”

Shane snorts and pops open another Corona. “Thanks, but I’m afraid that ship has sailed.”

“So, like...what happened?” Ryan’s eyes lock onto his, crinkled with amusement at the corners. “Did you realize you have a cross-dressing kink or something?”

Shane promptly downs about half his beer. “Oh my fucking god, can we not?”

“I get it, man.” Ryan drains his own drink and sets the bottle aside. “You, my dude, like feeling pretty. I’ve been thinking about this a lot.”

Surely he didn’t hear that right. “You’ve _what?”_

“We tried on lipstick and I thought you’d need to be surgically pried off the mirror. And when we did cardio barre, you lapped it up when the instructor complimented you on your long elegant dancer’s legs. Plus Daysha was doing that waist trainer thing around the same time and you were fucking _fascinated_.”

For a good thirty seconds, Shane can’t remember how to form words. He can’t do anything but stare at Ryan’s face like it’s the opening scene of a embarrassingly bad horror movie.

“Yeah?” Ryan prompts. He actually looks proud of himself, the poor oblivious thing.

Shane still thinks ghosts are bullshit, but he’s also starting to think he really should have just thrown himself out the window at the Borden house and taken up haunting.

“Oh my god, _no,_ you idiot. I liked cardio barre because it made me feel good, the makeup thing was cool because it was a novelty, and I was into Daysha’s thing because I’m a good fucking friend who takes an interest in what my friends do. I don’t secretly want to dress up like a princess when I bone down.”

“Jesus, then what the fuck was it?”

There’s only one way to respond to this, so Shane grits his teeth and does.

“I gotta go,” he mutters, and makes a beeline for the door.

 

* * *

 

The next day is Sunday.

Shane has no plans whatsoever aside from getting groceries and plotting how to best avoid Ryan when they go back to work. It won’t be easy--their job is pretty contingent on the two of them being joined at the hip--but Shane’s a thorough guy. He’s got all afternoon and a whole season of Daredevil to watch while he tries to come up with something.

He’s contemplating just how long he can get away with pretending to have either laryngitis or a vigilante alter ego when his phone lights up.

 

**Ryan**

_Today 12:26 PM_

Shane??? Can we talk???

**Ryan**

_Today 12:27 PM_

I think I figured it out

 

The beating Matt Murdock is taking has nothing on the carnage happening in Shane’s nervous system. He turns his phone on silent, throws it under a cushion, and goes to forage for booze.

Two episodes and three Heinekens later, he still doesn’t have a plan and the phone might as well be burning a hole in his couch.

Preparing himself for the worst, or at least a few terrifyingly probable incarnations of the worst, he digs it back out.

 

**Ryan**

_Today 12:44 PM_

Ok so maybe you need more time. That’s cool

**Ryan**

_Today 1:09 PM_

Or you can just tell me to stfu and I swear I will

**Ryan**

_Today 1:33 PM_

But just sayin…the mystery of the borden boner will NOT remain unsolved

 

There’s a kissy face emoji timestamped five minutes afterward, like maybe Ryan hesitated before sending it. Like maybe this is all kind of weird for Ryan too.

Shane takes a deep breath and texts back. _Want me to come over?_

The reply is instantaneous.

 

**Ryan**

_Today 2:25 PM_

Lol not if you’re just gonna run away again

 

The three little dots flicker on his phone’s screen for what feels like ages.

 

**Ryan**

_Today 2:27 PM_

I’ll come to you, ok?

 

The words are still there even after Shane closes his eyes and counts to ten. Either this is actually going to happen or he’s finally losing it.

 

_ok, see you soon_

 

He has to be losing it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took slightly longer to write than I anticipated because real life was getting in the way and concise sex scenes are not within my wheelhouse. Pls note the rating adjustment and, as always, if you're a Buzzfeed affiliate, log off and go bake a cake while blindfolded or something.

Shane has never metabolized alcohol so fast in his life.

By the time Ryan shows up a little over an hour later, he’s had more than enough time to sober up, take the most frenetic shower known to man, and vacuum the Dorito crumbs not only off the floor but also the couch.

Daredevil is paused on a shot of Foggy with tears in his eyes. Shane catches himself before sighing, “same, hard same” but only barely.

He’s not going to start talking to fictional characters, no matter how much easier it would probably be than talking to Ryan.

And of course, once he lets him in, the first words out of Ryan’s mouth are, “Hey, so did you ever think that maybe if you actually _talked_ to me about this, I’d say the same thing right back at you?”

Without moving a muscle, Shane quietly implodes.  

“Uh. No,” he replies automatically.

Ryan’s face creases into a grin as he throws himself onto the, in Shane’s opinion, practically pristine couch. “Of course not. I don’t know what else I was expecting.”

Irrationally, that gets Shane’s hackles up. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“In what world would you be like, ‘Hey, so I’ve got kind of a crush on you’ to literally anyone ever?”

It’s a very fair point and he very clearly knows it.

“This one, I guess.” Shane gingerly sits on the other side of the couch. If he makes any sudden movements, this weird alternate universe will shatter and he’ll wake up hungover in his bathtub surrounded by rubber duckies or something. “I’m working on a listicle about all the shit I’ve been meaning to tell you.” He tries his hardest to seem roguish and cavalier despite the butterflies in his stomach. “You won’t _believe_ number seven.”

“You’re the worst,” Ryan informs him cheerfully. "I’m _serious_ , dickhead. Everything doesn't have to be so complicated all the time."

“Whatever you say, Avril.”

Ryan’s face shifts into seriousness. “Come on, man.”

There’s a huge knot of anxiety building in Shane’s gut, but it can’t be helped. No matter how vulnerable he feels, Ryan is right there next to him and sticking his neck out just as far. Being flip isn’t going to get them anywhere. “Okay, riddle me this, Batman. If this is so uncomplicated, why didn’t _you_ ever say anything? I have a hard time imagining you get turned down very often.”

Ryan neither confirms nor denies this. “I dunno. You’re...kind of intimidating, I guess. In a skinny, freakishly bulbous-headed white dude sort of way.”

“Say no more, just ravish me now,” Shane mutters.

Ryan doesn’t seem to hear him at all. “But you’re also crazy smart and working with you is fucking amazing even though you don’t believe the truth when it’s right in front of your big stupid face. Also, this is gonna sound so fucking cheesy, but Unsolved is like our baby and I dunno how we’d split custody of it if some weird relationship shit went down. And I thought if I went there you’d just want to sit down and logic all that out because you never let me off easy.”

Ryan pauses for breath. For the first time, he looks like he might actually be a little rattled. “You _never_ let me off easy,” he repeats.

There’s a thread of plaintiveness in his voice this time.

Without thinking twice, Shane reaches over and squeezes his hand. It’s so much easier than he imagined it would be. "I thought you liked that about me."

Ryan looks, for one brief moment, the same way he looks before locking himself in a dark room alone. "Shane. You fucking idiot. I like you any way you'll let me have you.”

 

* * *

  
  


Everything that happens next swirls together in a watercolor wash of dubious impulses.

Shane is already leaning over so far he’s in danger of overbalancing and breaking his fall on Ryan’s face, so he lurches himself back to the other side of the couch in a decidedly non-suave way.

Ryan doesn’t seem to care and ventures, “So...can I kiss you now?” a split second before they actually do, so he ends up essentially finishing his sentence right up against Shane’s lips.

They break apart sputtering. As first kisses go, it’s pretty terrible and barely even counts, but by now Shane is almost positive this isn’t just a weird drunken dream happening while he’s passed out in the tub. Surely his subconscious would serve up something better. And if _that’s_ the case, that means this is going to have some serious repercussions they should probably address.

“Should we maybe have a conversation about--” Shane starts.

“Nope,” Ryan cuts him off, and drags himself to straddle Shane’s lap.

“Oh.” Shane blinks up at him, a strange but not at all unpleasant feeling. “Okay, maybe not now, but later, we should--”

“Later,” Ryan agrees. “Right now, all I need you to do is keep your huge-ass head right there so I don’t fuck this up.”

Shane doesn’t think he could move if he wanted to. His mouth drops half open, but for once he can’t force any words out of it.

Ryan’s face softens. “Is that okay? I can basically smell your nerves right now, man, it’s crazy.”

“Gross,” Shane says, smiling in spite of himself. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s okay.”

“Cool,” says Ryan, and kisses him.

This time, it’s pretty great.

This time, it _keeps_ being great.

Both of them are tentative at first, still learning each other. For a long time, they keep things chastely confined to muted touches and careful nudges of lips and tongues. Ryan is the first to up the ante, strong hands encircling Shane’s wrists and bearing them down against the back of the couch.

"So, is this what you wanted?" he breathes. “For me to just climb on board and kiss you until you knew I meant it?"

Ryan is a warm solid presence on him and over him, knees bracketing Shane on the sofa. It’s very, very difficult for Shane to formulate an answer. He normally keeps his cards close to the chest, but one of Ryan’s hands is suddenly on his chest right now and it’s unbelievably distracting.

"Holy shit, Ryan," Shane says, between kisses, "I just--fuckin’ wanted you to--yeah?"

But Ryan kisses him quiet, going relaxed above him, guiding them both down until they’re stretched out with their bodies touching from shoulder to foot on the sofa, twining their legs together, one strong hand still pinning Shane's left wrist.

Shane must be making some rather alarming sounds because Ryan is soothing him now, his voice a murmuring rush against Shane’s temple. “Hey, it’s okay. We can go slower if this is too weird, that would be serious bullshit after everything we’ve been through. Basically I’m just saying that I really, really don’t want shit to be weird, so you’ve gotta talk to me, okay? Don’t let me do anything that’s gonna make this weird.” Ryan’s mouth is hot along the ridge of Shane’s jaw and his nose is nuzzling at his ear.

Shane’s blood is somehow making a mad dash for his face and cock at the same time. He’s achingly hard, head dropping back when Ryan lips at his throat with curious little hums. “Ryan, I swear, I’ve never felt less weird in my life. I’ve had plenty of time to think about this.”

Ryan laughs against his neck, releasing one of Shane’s wrists to slide a hand into his hair. “I was _pissed_ when I found out you weren’t straight, man, you have no idea. I didn’t wanna waste time thinking maybe I’d have a chance. Then I just didn’t wanna feed your ego and make your enormous head any bigger.”

“You thought I was straight? In _this_ economy?”

“I do not fucking understand you sometimes,” Ryan admits, and guides their mouths back together, lush and sweet.

“I noticed,” Shane says, a little breathless, and glides his hands up Ryan’s back underneath his shirt, letting his fingernails graze just enough to make Ryan quake. He kisses Ryan’s jaw, and his throat and his mouth again, and breathes him in. "Oh god."

"Nope," Ryan says, a smile in his voice, body a column of heat against him, "it's just me. Open your eyes, man.”

Shane hadn’t even realized he’d closed them.

“Y’know, I thought about stuff too.” Ryan sounds way too calm about this. It’s almost insulting, since Shane feels about three seconds away from fainting like he really is a Victorian lady.

“Define _stuff_.” Shane’s eyebrows are slowly creeping up the length of his forehead.

“Oh, just...mouth stuff, dick stuff, sometimes butt stuff.” Ryan doesn’t seem at all flustered by any of this. “The usual.”

“Weird, I mostly fantasized about long romantic conversations.”

“Excuse you,” Ryan sniffs, shifting on top of him and making Shane go momentarily cross-eyed. “Prostate stimulation is hella romantic.”

Every ounce of logic disappears from Shane’s brain. “You’re gonna have to prove that to me sometime.”

“You don’t have much of a butt,” Ryan muses, “but I’d be happy to do stuff to it anyway.”

Shane surveys him with heavy-lidded eyes for a long, burning moment, unable to keep a smile from slanting across his face. "You do know how to ruin a moment, don't you?"

Ryan does something alarmingly fluid with his lower body. “So make me stop talking.”

So Shane goes for it. Both his hands end up caught in the cowlicked mess of Ryan's hair, greedily pulling his mouth back where it _should_ be and arching into the heat of him. Ryan’s jeans-clad thigh is slotted between both of his, and Shane can’t hold back from rolling his hips unto the contact, and it’s just a nudge from there to imagining Ryan’s bare skin on his, Ryan’s hand slow and slick around him. He groans quietly against the the sweet heat of Ryan’s mouth.

Shane can feel a heat burning in his face that has nothing to do with alcohol or corsets, can feel the heat in his gut, liquid-hot and molten, twisting itself in knots, jamming itself down between his legs and leaving him shaking.

Ryan melts against him. _Finally_. One hand slides around to the back of Shane’s head, keeping him from pressing uncomfortably into the couch arm--and fuck, he loves that about Ryan, the little considerations he does for others that most people take for granted, like it’s not even a conscious thought for him, like the kindness comes naturally because any other options just don’t exist to him. His other arm is solid around Shane’s waist and their brows are warm together. When they break apart and Shane’s vision refocuses, he catches Ryan looking at him with the biggest, dopiest smile on his face and, god help him, Shane doesn’t even consider teasing him about it.

Ryan kneads gently at his nape, eyelashes dipping, and his voice slides through Shane’s body like warm honey. "Found you."

He swallows around the dry patch deep in his throat, his own eyes squeezing shut. "Yeah, here I am. Right here."

There’s a distinct red tinge to Ryan’s cheeks. “Can we maybe move this to a bed?”

“Yeah, definitely, c’mon,” Shane answers, a little too loud and a little too fast, but fuck it, he’s too caught up in the moment to cringe. Then, absurdly, like they’re divvying up a hotel room on an Unsolved shoot, “Which side do you want?”

Ryan grins. “Whichever one you’re on.”

 

* * *

  

Shane’s bed is borderline decadent. He’s a big guy and you spend a third of your life sleeping, so he firmly believes the indulgence is worth it. It means there’s plenty of space to get Ryan spread out under him, plenty of room for Ryan to grunt and flip them over so Shane is sprawled out dazed and turned on beyond belief while Ryan starts nosing up under the hem of his shirt.

He squirms a little, trapped between the mattress and Ryan, warmth pooling in the pit of his stomach when a mouth goes curiously trailing over it. Ryan is completely absorbed in his task, pausing to kiss at Shane’s navel, then his hipbone, humming happily to himself.

As easy as it would be to let himself lie back and bask in the touches, Shane is determined not to be that dude. Reaching down, he catches hold of Ryan’s tee and rucks up the fabric as much as he can, enough to draw his nails up the bare skin of Ryan's back and then smooth over the same area with his palms.

Helpfully, Ryan wriggles his shoulders to help him along, spine curving and a sigh rushing out against Shane’s ribs. “Hey, Shane?”

“Hm?” Shane pushes himself onto one elbow and hastily strips his own shirt off the rest of the way before he can overthink anything.

“I’m about to pants you,” Ryan says, his eyes tracking every move as Shane chucks his shirt over the side of the bed. “Stop me whenever, okay?”

“Is this pantsing or de-pantsing?”

“It’s gonna be nothing if you keep on being a pretentious dick,” Ryan shoots back.

Shane isn’t sure if Ryan is undercutting or emphasizing his own point by drawing down Shane’s fly, but even he knows this isn’t the time to argue semantics. “I’m so not stopping you.”

Ryan graces him with a beatific smile. “Good.” Then he’s ducking to nudge his face right there between Shane's thighs, drawing Shane’s jeans open even more so he can nuzzle him through the cotton of underwear, plucking at the waistband with fidgety fingers.

“Holy _fucking_ shit,” Shane says eloquently.

Ryan sighs slowly and sinks against him, touching wherever he likes, and Shane can't get enough of that. With every new spark of sensation Ryan lavishes on him, something in the back of his mind starts screeching and hollering about all the time he wasted by voluntarily cutting himself off from it. Shane doesn't know if he's ever going to get over that monumentally poor choice, but he's seen the error of his ways now. His breath hitches when Ryan settles between his legs and lazily teases him through the cloth, dragging his boxers just low enough for the scrape of cloth against his dick to make him moan. One of his hands drags through Ryan’s already messy hair, the other more insistently pulling Ryan's shirt up higher.

Ryan pauses just long enough to tug it over his head and immediately dives right back into the process of divesting Shane of his boxers and jeans completely. Then he’s passing his hands slow and warm up Shane’s inner thighs, lapping at the dip of stomach, and ignoring his cock completely.

Shane can’t help it: he whines.

“This is kind of a thing for you, huh?” Ryan’s thumbs are innocently rubbing circles in the hollows of Shane’s hips. “You like it when someone works you over a little.”

Without thinking, Shane slides a hand down between his legs. Ryan catches his wrist effortlessly and draws it back beside his head on the pillow in a slow, gentle movement. “Nuh-uh, man. Seriously, how much of our relationship has been you lowkey edging yourself?”

Shane can’t answer. The husk of Ryan’s words makes him push his hips up slightly, even though there's nothing but empty air to push against. His eyes nearly slide closed, but he's hell-bent on staring at the shift of muscles under Ryan's skin. A pulse of precome swells at the tip of his dick and slowly, mortifyingly trails down the length of it.

And Ryan watches, eyes wide and riveted. “Whoa.”

Shane squirms, face burning and every nerve ending alight. “Ryan, c’mon, please…”

He doesn’t have to say any more than that before Ryan gives him exactly what he needs.

Ryan is fluidly shifting heat and sweetness and _his_ , still laid out on top of him and holding him and opening his mouth so perfectly for more. One very capable hand moves low enough to curl around Shane’s dick, stroking just firmly enough to make him tremble. The two of them, like this--it's just _nice_. Nothing complicated about it at all. Shane's breath catching with every smooth movement of Ryan’s hand, a flush burning under his skin. He could just put his legs over Ryan’s shoulders and let him fuck him like this, right now, agonizingly slowly. Holy shit, he really could.

Then Ryan scrapes his teeth against Shane’s shoulder and goes in for a shameless ass-grab, making his eyes flit shut and his cock pulse precome, wetness smearing between their bellies.

Fingers are curling around him again, too loosely, making him groan and try in vain to fuck Ryan’s fist. “You’re a fucking menace, Bergara.”

Another nip of those perfect white teeth to his shoulder. "Yeah. I don't think you mind it, though.

And Shane arches into the slow, petting touches along his shoulders and neck, head falling back as Ryan works his way up the stretch of his throat. His thighs are parted, hips rocking subtly against the roughness of the jeans Ryan is still wearing for some reason.

“Fuckin’ get naked already, man,” Shane mumbles, managing to get one hand splayed across Ryan’s chest as the other starts fumbling with his fly. It’s impressive Ryan’s kept them on this long; he can feel how hard he is through the layers of fabric.

Ryan goes pliant when Shane undresses him, falling onto his back. One hand settles in the short hair at Shane’s nape, almost petting.

Once Shane wrestles his jeans off him, he pauses and takes a moment just to drink him in. Ryan is built as fuck, he’s been acutely aware of that for some time now, but this is the first time he’s been able to appreciate it without any inhibitions. His dick is flushed and full, nipples taut against the smooth skin of his chest. Shane can’t resist mouthing at them, testing the response when he gives each nipple an experimental lick, then daring to suck a little when Ryan yelps and arches up.

Shane glides his arms around Ryan’s waist, hauling him closer until their chests and stomachs are pressed together and every heaving breath Ryan draws resonates through Shane’s body too. Shane is burying his face in the crook of Ryan’s neck, shamelessly rutting against his thigh, when Ryan’s hands take hold of his hips. Shane makes a small sound of loss, but Ryan grips him more firmly, holding him still **.**

“Can I--,” Ryan asks, voice noticeably lower than usual. His eyes are glittering under his lashes. “I wanna blow you, would that make shit too weird?”

“You want--” Shane starts, trying to shake himself back into coherence. “For real?”

Ryan huffs out a laugh. His hand drifts down Shane’s chest.“You seriously think I haven’t thought about it?”

”What’s your comfort level here?” Shane blurts out. “I mean, _yes_ , holy shit, yes, but thinking and doing are really different.”

“Huh?”

“Have you ever had a dick in your mouth before?”

Ryan looks at him pityingly. “Oh, my sweet summer Shane.”

“How many?” Shane presses.

A faint line sketches itself between Ryan’s brows. “What, like at one time?”

“Jesus, man, what the fuck kind of frat were you in?”

“An educational one,” Ryan says, giving his cock a long, slow squeeze. “Lemme demonstrate.”

Shane’s pulse somehow doubles. He closes his eyes for a moment because he can’t watch without falling apart entirely, but he can’t _not_ watch because Jesus Christ, the sight of Ryan going down on him for the first time is a memory Shane is going to treasure forever.

Ryan’s mouth parts over his glans in an obscene kiss, tongue flickering out to taste him.

Shane grips at the duvet and struggles to maintain a shred of self-control.

As it turns out, Ryan wasn’t exaggerating. The way he bobs his head and molds his tongue against the underside of Shane’s cock can only be described as _practiced_. One sure hand gently guides Shane’s thighs apart a bit more, taking hold of his balls and teasing against them in counterpoint to every movement of his mouth.

It doesn’t take long before Shane is grabbing at Ryan’s head instead of the covers, fighting not to yank his hair as Ryan sucks him, tight lips and soft throat and artfully applied strokes of tongue. His hands scrabble at Ryan’s shoulders, trying to telegraph his urgency. “Ry-- _Ryan_ \-- _fuck_.”

Ryan eases up, but just barely, and when Shane comes it’s into his mouth. Even then, Ryan doesn’t miss a beat, just keeps softly sucking him through it. When he finally slides off, his lips look plump and used. There’s an openness to his face that makes Shane’s chest ache. It’s so easy to imagine the emotions that would play across it when Shane’s body is sheathed around Ryan’s fingers, the way his jaw would go slack with arousal when Shane clenches around him. Normally, Shane is the stoic one and Ryan can’t maintain a poker face to save his life, but at the moment he thinks they must be pretty evenly matched.

“Fuck, Ryan,” Shane breathes, a rawness to his voice that he hasn’t heard in a long time. “C’mere already, lie down.”

Shane barely has to touch him before Ryan gives a full-body shudder. “I’m close, man.”

“I haven’t even--”

“Sucking dick always turns me on,” Ryan says unceremoniously.

“Does it now,” Shane murmurs, thumbing at the sensitive spot just beneath the head. “Show me how much.”

Shane urges him up and Ryan lets him, making a small sound of approval when their mouths meet, when Ryan’s lips part and Shane’s tongue slips easily into the heat of it, stroking lewdly. Ryan’s body rocks steadily against him, tidelike, as Shane jerks him off slow and easy. They’re tangled together on their sides, Ryan with one hand clutching at Shane’s thigh, the other hooked around a shoulder. Each moan he utters vibrates softly between them, shared and breathed, and Shane would bet everything he owns that there's no way in hell it's possible to be happier than he is right now.

Ryan comes, his hips riding up in a slow, satisfied roll **.**

They lie there for a long, slow stretch of time, drifting on the fringes of sleep and each other. Then Ryan looks askance at him. “So, uh, I don’t really know what happens now,” he admits. “Please tell me you don’t want me to leave because I honestly can’t move yet.”

Shane flinches like he’s just been slapped. “How big of an asshole do you think I am? Don’t answer that,” he adds, when a speculative look creeps across Ryan’s face. “Seriously, I don’t know what happens either, but I’m doing a Daredevil rewatch and I have a weekend coupon from Eat24. Is that an okay first step?”

Ryan flashes him a smile that could melt glaciers. “Mm, that sounds fucking amazing, but I still can’t move yet.”

“That’s okay.” Shane runs a hand down his chest, still riding the thrill of being able to touch Ryan like this. “Want me to tell you about this laughing plague that happened in Tanzania back in the sixties?”

The sound that comes out of Ryan is somewhere between a giggle and a groan. “Jesus, Shane, shut up.”

Shane can’t help himself. He winks. “Make me.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm over at makemadej.tumblr.com if you want to send me writing prompts or gif requests :D


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